The impact of counselling on caregivers' readiness to use Augmentative and Alternative Communication: A pre-post survey study

Abstract

The success of AAC implementation for regular communication at home primarily depends on caregivers’ perceptions and attitudes towards AAC. However, misconceptions and negative attitudes influence caregivers' attitudes to use AAC with their children. So, appropriate counselling and guidance might help in changing caregivers' perceptions and attitudes towards AAC. Hence, the present study was conducted to check for the change in the perception of caregivers to use AAC post-counselling. A descriptive survey with pre-post comparison method was used. The data was collected from a total of 83 caregivers of children with special needs of two speech and hearing institutes from Karnataka. The study was conducted in three phases. In the first phase, an e-survey was conducted using a checklist. Based on the scoring pattern for each question, the participants were divided into sub-categories and the percentage was calculated. In the second phase, caregivers were given counselling according to the categories. In the third phase, caregivers rechecked for their readiness to use AAC through a feedback form. Percentage of pre-post counselling comparison of readiness to use AAC was calculated. Post- counselling, 100% of participants had high readiness to accept the use of AAC compared to pre-counselling. This change could be due to increase in caregivers’ awareness and knowledge about AAC during the counselling sessions as well as while self-administering the checklist. The present study thus indicates the vital role of counselling in reducing negative attitudes and myths towards the use of AAC.